3 Jul
2010
Posted in: Theology
By    4 Comments

Churches filing for a BP payout

A church in Alabama, impacted by the BP oil disaster, is filing a claim for compensation. According to this article,

Pastor Dan Brown prays BP PLC comes up with a solution quickly: He said he filed a $50,000 claim last month over lost revenues at Anchor Assembly of God. His small, storefront church outlived Hurricane Katrina and is now struggling because of the oil crisis.

Shrimpers and oystermen left jobless by the oil spill in this seafood town can barely afford to feed their families and pay their boat loans, much less give money to their church, Brown said. Giving and tithing is down by $12,000 over the last few weeks, he said, and the oil spill will cost another $38,000 in lost revenues over the next year, making up the total of the church’s claim.

I’m struggling with this one. On the one hand, I understand the plight. I can understand that when the church is setup to function based on the tithing, this sort of thing could/will happen. But, should this be? There’s one question of the fundamental structure and organization of the church itself. Another question is whether a church should be filing such a claim in the first place. I’m not giving judgement either way on this. Just asking the question.

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  • http://cormierclan.com/brandy Jason

    I think they could manage if they thought outside the 4 walls box.

  • toddgrotenhuis

    I think that BP management (and more accurately Congress: who limits liability and subsidizes reckless behavior) _are_ responsible for those “losses.” However, don't those Christians also have a duty to forgive those losses?

  • Just visiting

    Won't God provide of his own free will? Isn't this just a slippery slope tactic? Seems selfish to me. Where is the end to the claims? Maybe the auto industry in Michigan should claim injury because of the domino effect?